Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/80263
President's Message continued erosion, exceptionally high service demands, lack of knowl- edgeable sales support driving costs back upstreamtomanu- facturers,and lack of a full breadth of line support (by the vol- ume-added dealer network) are just a fewof the possible ram- ifications tomanufacturers selling throughAmazon. Itwill be interesting to see if any of our E&Smanufacturers do decide to sell toAmazon and if they do,howthatwill play out over time. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said,"The only constant is change."Depending on your perspective, you might find recent industry developments to be good or bad changes. Either way, they have the potential to impact each of our businesses.While the degree to which we can influence these changes is debatable, it is important to be aware of them and understand them as much as possible.u Doing Business continued changes to the ordinary course of business defense: • In defending against a preference claim, the seller now needs to prove either (1) the paymentwasmade in the ordi- nary course of business of the seller and customer,or (2) the payment was made according to ordinary business terms in the industry, generally. Under prior law, the seller had to meet both tests. • Under the new law, the trustee may not recover prefer- ential transfers to a seller aggregating less than $5,000. • Under prior law, the trustee typically filed,or threatened to file, a suit (called an adversary proceeding) against a sell- er in a distant bankruptcy court to recover a small prefer- ence payment.The seller would often elect to settle rather than incur defense costs.Under the newlaw,with some lim- ited exceptions, these suits seeking to recover less than $10,000may be filed only in the federal district courtwhere the seller is located. A Helpful Resource Potential problem accounts need to be monitored care- fully by the credit executive. One public source of infor- mation is PACER, or Public Access to Court Electronic Records. PACER is an Internet-based free government serv- ice that provides a database of information on cases filed in many federal courts, including the Bankruptcy Courts. The database may be searched using the name of a com- pany or individual and searches may be limited to all Bankruptcy Courts listed on PACER. Users must first regis- ter at http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/. The foregoing discussion of rights and remedies available to a company is not all-inclusive. Because the complicated nature of the debtor-creditor laws, especially the bankrupt- cy law, assistance of counsel is recommended to assure that proper action is taken under the particular circumstances in each case. u About the Author FEDA's Legal Counsel,George Keeley, can be reached at 312-782-1829 or via email at gkeeley@kkrlaw.com. 32 FEDA News & Views